Jonathan Edwards

for the New Millennium

PROGRAM

On the very site where we are now con­vened, Jonathan Edwards min­is­tered to his con­gre­ga­tion for almost a quar­ter of a cen­tury.  A memo­r­ial to him in the form of a bronze bas-​​relief sculpted by Her­bert Adams is mounted on wall of the sanc­tu­ary, part of the fifth meet­ing house to occupy this site.  It was for­mally unveiled on June 22, 1900 to com­mem­o­rate the 150^th anniver­sary of Edwards’ dis­missal.  This memo­r­ial plaque, accord­ing to N. H. Gar­diner who chaired the com­mit­tee com­mis­sion­ing it, “rep­re­sents more than the desire of this church to atone for the past; it rep­re­sents rather a gen­eral sen­ti­ment of respect for the illus­tri­ous min­is­ter who belongs to no sin­gle church exclu­sively, but to the his­toric Church Universal.”

We are con­vened here at The First Churches to con­sider the theme of Edwards for the New Mil­len­nium.  Note the prepo­si­tion “for” instead of “in.”  “In” sug­gests being com­fort­ably and per­haps sta­t­i­cally inside.  Edwards, how­ever, can­not be con­tained and con­tin­ues to this day as a dynamic force, a prophetic gad­fly who haunts the present, still afflict­ing the com­fort­able.  He is “for” our time inso­far as he is of use to it, and not merely an inter­est­ing relic from a bygone age.  All the con­fer­ees are invited to join in estab­lish­ing and con­tribut­ing to the work of the Jonathan Edwards Soci­ety which is ded­i­cated to pro­mot­ing ongo­ing research on America’s Spir­i­tual Found­ing Father.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1^st

8:00–8:30 a.m.  Gath­er­ing & Registration

8:30–8:45 a.m.  Convocation

• Intro­duc­tions by The Rev. Peter Ives,  The Rev. Mark Seifried, & Richard A. S. Hall

Some Issues in Edwards’ Philo­soph­i­cal Theology

8:50–9:30 a.m.

• “Edwards’ Chris­to­log­i­cal Vision: His ‘See­ing All Things in Christ’” –Her­bert W. Richardson

9:35–10:15 a.m.

• “Jonathan Edwards on Divine Ase­ity” –Oliver Crisp

Break

10:25–11:15 a.m.

• “Jonathan Edwards’s Phi­los­o­phy of Nature” –Avihu Zakai

11:20–12:00 p.m. 

• “Com­mu­nica­tive­ness & the Har­mony of Real­ity: A New The­ory on Jonathan Edwards” –William M. Schweitzer

12:00 –1:00 p.m.  LUNCH

His­tor­i­cal Con­ti­nu­ities between Edwards and Others

1:05–2:05 p.m.   (Ple­nary Ses­sion I)

• “Edwards on Justification—A New Per­spec­tive” –Gerry McDer­mott

2:10–3:10 p.m.   (Ple­nary Ses­sion II)

• “Jonathan Edwards–Global The­olo­gian for Twenty-​​First-​​Century Chris­tian­ity” –Michael McClymond

Break

3:15–3:55 p.m.

• “Edwards’s The­o­log­i­cal Inquiry” –Adri­aan C. Neele

4:00–4:40 p.m.

• “A Tough Nut to Crack: Edwards’s Trini­tar­i­an­ism & its Reformed Scholas­tic Her­itage” –Robert Cald­well

The Impact of Edwards on his Con­tem­po­raries and Descendants

4:45–5:25 p.m.

• “Expand­ing Our Vision: Exam­in­ing Edwards’ Ideas in Lay Con­texts” –Chris­t­ian Cuthbert

5:30–6:10 p.m.

• “Death & Mem­ory in the Edwards Fam­ily” –Ken­neth P. Minkema

RECEPTION  & EXHIBITION OF ARTEFACTS (Forbes Library)

TOUR OF JONATHAN EDWARDS’ NORTHAMPTON

SATURDAY, OCTOBER  2^nd

Edwards on Reli­gious Expe­ri­ence & Faith

8:30–9:10 a.m.

• “Grace His­tori­cized? Edwards’ Twelve Signs of Reli­gious Affec­tion in the 21^st Cen­tury” –Robert W. King

9:15–9:55 a.m.

• “The Unlisted Sign” –Daniel Smuda

10:00–10:40 a.m.

• “The Con­vic­tion of Things Not Seen: The Role of Faith in Edwards, Niebuhr and James” –Jef­frey McPherson

Break

10:50–11:30 a.m.

• “The Inti­macy of Aes­thet­ics: Know­ing Jonathan Edwards in the Twenty-​​First Cen­tury” –Jen­nifer Bernstein

“Sin­ners in the Hands of an Angry God”

11:35–12:15 p.m.

• “Jonathan Edwards’ Use of Arrows as Imagery in ‘Sin­ners in the Hands of an Angry God’” –Peter A. Geromel

12:20–1:00 p.m.

• “Spi­der in a Tree: ‘Sin­ners in the Hands of an Angry God’” –Susan Stinson

1:00–2:00 p.m.  LUNCH

Typol­ogy

2:05–2:45 p.m.   

• “Speak­ing with­out Bar­barisms: The Beauty of Jonathan Edwards’s Metaphor­i­cal The­ol­ogy” –Rob Boss

2:50–3:30 p.m.

• “Jonathan Edwards’s Types and Images as a Foun­da­tion for Post­mod­ern Myth” –Sarah Boss

3:35–4:15 p.m.

• “Recon­tex­tu­al­iz­ing Edwards’s ‘Types’ Note­book” –Jerry Stuzman

Break

4:20–5:00 p.m.

• “Anne Brad­street As Pre­cur­sor of Edwards” –Richard A. S. Hall

Edwards & Apologetics

5:05–5:45 p.m.

• “Edwards of the Inter-​​Faith” –David White

BANQUET (The Pub­lick House, Stur­bridge, Massachusetts)

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3^rd

10:00–11:00 a.m.

• Ser­vice of Wor­ship –The Rev. Mark Seifried, Preacher

11:30–

• Busi­ness Meet­ing:  The Jonathan Edwards Society

LOCATION

All aca­d­e­mic ses­sions of the con­fer­ence will be held in The First Churches:

• Address: 129 Main Street, Northamp­ton, MA 01060
• Phone:  (413) 584‑9392

The Jonathan Edwards Soci­ety wishes to thank the fol­low­ing indi­vid­u­als for their indis­pens­able work in host­ing, plan­ning and orga­niz­ing this conference:

• Peter Ives, Emer­i­tus Pas­tor at The First Churches, Northamp­ton, MA
• Mark Seifried, Interim Pas­tor, at The First Churches, Northamp­ton, MA
• Elise Bernier-​​Feeley, Local His­tory & Gene­ol­ogy Librar­ian, Forbes Library, Northamp­ton, MA
• Julie H. Bartlett, Archivist, Calvin Coolidge Pres­i­den­tial Library & Museum,  Hamp­shire Room for Local His­tory, Forbes Library, Northampton, MA
• Bar­bara Furtek

Spe­cial thanks are due Her­bert W. Richard­son, whose idea it was to have these con­fer­ences and who has pro­vided unstint­ingly for their finan­cial and moral sup­port, and Rob Boss for design­ing and admin­is­ter­ing the offi­cial web­site of the Jonathan Edwards Society.

Please note:  Each speaker, except­ing the ple­nary speak­ers, has 40 min­utes for his/​her pre­sen­ta­tion; you may allow more or less time for either the pre­sen­ta­tion or the question/​answer session.

The con­fer­ence reg­is­tra­tion fee is $50.00 for adults, $25.00 for col­lege stu­dents, and $10.00 for high school stu­dents. Please  make checks payable to The Jonathan Edwards Soci­ety. Pay­ments may be mailed to: